OUR NEW SHEPHERD

The past few days all of the media outlets have been filled with stories about our new pope.

So I figure I may as well join the fun.

Has anyone else noticed how appropriate our recent mass readings have been for the occasion of the election? Here are a few thoughts.

The Acts of the Apostles

At every mass during the Easter season, we read a section from the acts of the apostles. The plot of this book is very simple: it tells the story how, after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, the apostles spread the faith to the rest of the world, starting, of course in Jerusalem. It doesn’t take long before the action speeds up. On the day, the pope was elected, we heard the story of the conversion of Saint Paul, who would spread the gospel to the Greek-speaking world. The Good News would no longer be confined to Israel, but would now spread to the Gentile world. The psalms and antiphons have echoed the theme, “All you nations, sing out your joy to the Lord."

The Bread of Life

After listening to passages from the Acts of the Apostles in the first reading, we were

presented with passages from the gospel of John, Chapter 6, the so-called “Bread of Life chapter.“ We heard first the story of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, Jesus as the new Moses bringing us the new manna from heaven. Then the emphasis shifted to Christ as the bread of life “I am the bread come down from heaven. The one who eats this bread will live forever.” We learned that we are all one in Christ, one bread, one body. The theology of the Eucharist teaches that we are all one in the Lord.

The Good Shepherd

Last Sunday’s gospel shows Jesus speaking with Peter, the first Pope. The risen Lord gives him his mission, repeating it three times: "Feed my sheep." The week ends with "Good Shepherd Sunday."  The Alleluia verse before the Gospel summarizes the theme contained in all three readings: 

"I am the good shepherd, says the Lord;

I know my sheep and mine know me."

The good Shepherd cares for the one flock. And the flock is not just one particular group, but all of the Father’s children. Pretty appropriate bookends for the week during which the Lord gave us a new shepherd!

Pope Leo XIV

The Holy Spirit has guided the college of Cardinals to choose for  us a New Shepherd whose whole life has been a witness to the worldwide reach of the Church. He speaks several languages and has been to many different countries around the world. Although he is an American citizen, he is also a citizen of Peru, where he served as a bishop for almost 10 years. 

While so many of us waited impatiently for the name of the new pope to be announced, the television cameras kept panning the crowd in Saint Peter’s Square, where many people were waving flags of different nations from around the world. It was a celebration of the worldwide reach of the church.

After the identity of the new pope was announced, the camera showed a couple of people proudly holding up and shaking a large American flag. I immediately groaned out loud. “No! It’s not about what nation he's from! It’s not like the World Cup competition!“

Later that day, however, I started to ask myself “What were those Americans shouting as they were waving their flag?“ My first thought had been that they were shouting. “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” like a bunch of rowdy, soccer fans. But what a difference it would make if they were shouting “Viva il Papa! Viva il papa!“ I hope that this is indeed what they were shouting. If that's so, then I publicly apologize to them for my rash judgment.

Let us all pray hard for our new pope. May he convince the 1.4 Billion Catholics in the world that we are called to be the successors of those first missionaries in the Acts of the Apostles, to spread the Good News by the way we live.

May he help us to heal all the divisions in our church and help us to realize that we are all called to be one in the body of Christ.

May he find us attentive and obedient members of the one flock under the one Shepherd.

Finally, let us all do our part so that we can deserve to shout with all of our brothers and sisters around the world. “Viva il Papa!”

A JOB OPENING?

 We know that Saint Paul had this deep, mystical side; he wrote, for example, "It is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me" and "For me, to live is Christ." But there's his much better known active, missionary side as well. It was this latter side that comes out in a verse that occurred in the first reading at mass this Friday: 

"Thus should one regard us: as servants of Christ..." (1 Cor. 4:1) 

Looking for some food for meditation, I opened to this verse in Paul's original Greek and saw the word for "servant" was huperetes. I wasn't familiar with this word, but a minute's investigation offered me a challenging meditation on my Christian vocation. I share it with you here.

The Greek huperetes is used in a number of ways in the New Testament:

1. an attendant to a king
2. an officer of the Sanhedrin
3. an attendant of a magistrate
4. a temple guard (in John's gospel)

It occurred to me that all of these are pretty active roles often requiring effort, the exercise of responsibility, and, of course accountability.  

I asked myself, "Should I apply for the job as a "servant of Christ?" What sort of work would it involve? What would be my responsibilities? Who would I answer to? What sort of pay is involved? Any benefits?

Not long after asking myself these question I found myself being asked by Christ to help him with certain tasks: A phone call to a friend who is a shut-in. A kind attitude in a difficult discussion with a brother. A smile and a listening ear to a troubled man who came to the monastery's door looking for someone to listen to him.

Now I can look back on these incidents using the criteria listed above for a good "servant of Christ: "effort, the exercise of responsibility, and, of course accountability." So, it seems that like you, I got this job at my baptism, and all through my life I've been at various times a faithful servant or a lax one. 

Let's pray for one another that we can be, to use another word from Paul, "fellow workers" in preaching and building the Kingdom.

A "GREAT" SERVANT

September 3 is the feast of Saint Gregory the Great. He was pope during the 500's, one of the most tumultuous time in the Church's history The center of the Empire had shifted from Rome to Constantinople, which meant a lot of sensitive diplomacy ion the Pope's side. Barbarians were marauding up and down the Italian peninsula, posing a constant threat to the city of Rome and causing the breakdown of the economic, governmental and other systems. The Arian heresy was shattering the Church into warring factions. This was the backdrop of the papacy of Gregory.  

How did the manage to rise above all of this confusions, even chaos far enough to write countless treatises and letters, He left us the first biography of Saint Benedict of Nursia, and wrote a book entitled "On Pastoral Care" which would become the handbook for medieval bishops. It's in this latter book that he leaves us his secret for staying above the chaos all around him:

"A bishop must not neglect his inner life because of the attention he gives to externals; nor must preoccupation with his inner life make him fail to attend to external matters." Gregory assumes that a bishop will spend time in "lofty contemplation" to balance the busyness and stress of his external responsibilities. So, there you hae Gregory's key to holiness.

Talk about a "Servant of God!" 

Pope Saint Gregory the Great, pray for us!

GIFT LISTS

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A SURPRISE GIFT

A few days ago Fr. Luke asked me to come up with a phrase, preferably something I’d written, that we could use in the Newark Abbey Christmas card. When I went to my book on Advent and Christmas and turned to the meditation for Dec. 25 I found the following:

I remember something that Pope John Paul II once wrote: The deepest human drama is to make oneself into a gift. At Christmas we celebrate God’s becoming a gift for us by taking on our human flesh. But Christmas is also a call to me to imitate God by making myself into a gift for others (From Holidays to Holy Days, 103).

I suggested to Fr. Luke that we use just the last sentence, "Christmas is also a call to me to imitate God by making myself into a gift for others." Then I went about my business. The next morning at meditation I started reflecting on the idea of making myself into a gift for others. I started making a mental list of the “others” to whom I’m supposed to be a gift and was overwhelmed right away by a torrent of faces: brother monks, students, family, friends, colleagues, parishioners. Phew! Being a gift to all those people sounded exhausting, so I stopped making the list.

Then it occurred to me to begin at the other end and ask “What are the gifts I have that I can give to others?” That seemed less likely to overwhelm me. I started a mental “brag sheet:” I can hear confessions in three languages, I’m an experienced teacher, I write books and give retreats …

The list suddenly stopped when I thought of a certain student in our school. A real pain in the neck to his teachers, he happens to be very gifted photographer. I haven’t taught him in a couple of years now but we always exchange greetings in the hallway. Early this week he said to me in a very matter-of-fact way, “Hey, Father Al, you know that smile that you always have that makes everybody feel good, that makes people feel warm inside? I want to take a picture of it. Could I?” He said this in a very matter-of-fact way, as if he were stating some obvious fact. That caught me off guard, but in a pleasant way: It was great to know that I could be a gift to other people without even trying!

If he weren’t a photographer I would never have known that my smile is a gift to him. That was a gift to me. Hmm. I suppose there must be lots of ways that each of us becomes a gift for one another without even realizing it.

CHRIST THE KING

Sunday, November 24, is “the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe,” known more simply as the feast of Christ the King. 

Pope Francis has proven a huge disappointment to a lot of Catholics for a lot of reasons, one of

Pope in St. Peter's Square

which is his discarding many of the traditional papal trappings of royalty. Popes as recently as Paul VI have been carried into St. Peter’s on a throne on the shoulders of several men accompanied by ostrich plume fans. These trappings originally sent a message to the world that the pope was the equal in power to the emperor in Constantinople who had the same courtly trappings. Slowly that statement has lost its urgency, its relevance.

Bishop Joseph Francis of Newark once told this story about himself: He was entering a parish church in a procession for a confirmation ceremony. He was feeling pretty good about the gorgeous vestments and the shiny miter on his head and the beautiful crosier (staff) he was carrying. Suddenly a little boy screamed excitedly, “Look, mommy! The Burger King!” When Pope Francis was elected he had his choice of three sizes of red papal slippers to wear, but he just kept his black shoes, nor did he wear the beautiful red ermine-trimmed cape that tradition demanded. Yes, he began disappointing a lot of people within minutes of his election.

Pope visiting the Youth House

As Archbishop of Buenos Aires and then as Pope he has never stopped insisting that the Church must be a church for the poor. He takes every opportunity to reiterate that same message to the world and to Vatican insiders by word and deed. He wants the church to make itself into a gift for the poor. By the way, in the monastery we just finished a table-reading book entitled “Pope Francis: Untying the Knots,” which I highly recommend. It explains how the early Father Bergoglio changed so radically as Archbishop and then as Pope. It would make a beautiful Christmas gift to someone on your list.

THANKSGIVING LIST

Speaking about lists… I always write in my prayer journal on Thanksgiving Morning a list of things that I’m thankful for. I get writer’s cramp, but it’s worth it. The list includes people in my life, people who have made themselves (consciously or not) into a gift to me. I pray that in return I’ll wind up on of few people’s list as someone who is a gift to them.

Happy Thanks giving!        

THE POPE'S SPEECH

PRE- CONCLAVE SPEECH

The archbishop of Havana says that a speech given by Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio (now Pope Francis) during the cardinals' pre-conclave meetings was "masterful" and "clear."

Cardinal Jaime Lucas Ortega y Alamino spoke of Cardinal Bergoglio's speech at a Mass on Saturday in Cuba, having returned home from his trip to Rome to bid farewell to Benedict, participate in the conclave, and welcome Francis.

Cardinal Ortega said that Cardinal Bergoglio gave him the handwritten notes of the speech, and the permission to share the contents.

"Allow me to let you know, almost as an absolute first fruit, the thought of the Holy Father Francis on the mission of the Church," Cardinal Ortega said.

During Saturday's Mass, Havana's archbishop spoke of the address as "masterful, enlightening, calling for a commitment, and true."

Then he read the full text that the future Pope gave him, in which he summarizes in four points the thoughts he wished to share with his brother cardinals and which express his personal vision of the Church in the present time. Here is the text. The headings in caps are mine.

Then-Archbishop of Buenos Aires in  footwashing ceremony

"The Sweet and Comforting Joy of Evangelizing"

Reference was made to evangelization. It is the raison d'etre of the Church -- "the sweet and comforting joy of evangelizing" (Paul VI). It is Jesus Christ himself who impels us from within.

THE CHURCH GOING OUT OF HERSELF

1. - To evangelize implies apostolic zeal. To evangelize implies a desire in the Church to come out of herself. The Church is called to come out of herself and to go to the peripheries not only in the geographic sense but also the existential peripheries: those of the mystery of sin, of pain, of injustice, of ignorance, of doing without religion, of thought and of all misery.

THE SELF-REFERENT CHURCH

Popes should pay their hotel bills!

2. - When the Church does not come out of herself to evangelize, she becomes self-referent and then she gets sick. (cf. The hunchback woman of the Gospel). The evils that over the course of time happen in ecclesial institutions have their root in a self-reference and a sort of theological narcissism. In Revelation, Jesus says that he is at the door and knocks. Evidently the text refers to his knocking from outside in order to enter but I think of the times in which Jesus knocks from within so that we will let him come out. The self-referent Church keeps Jesus Christ within herself and does not let him come out.    

 

TWO IMAGES OF CHURCH

 3. - When the Church is self-referent without realizing it, she believes she has her own light. She ceases to be the mysterium lunae and gives way to that very great evil which is spiritual worldliness (according to De Lubac, it is the worst evil that can come upon the Church). The self-referent Church lives to give glory only to one another. In simple terms, there are two images of the Church: the evangelizing Church that comes out of herself; the Dei Verbum religiose audiens et fidente proclamans, and the worldly Church that lives within herself, of herself, for herself. This must give light to the possible changes and reforms which must be made for the salvation of souls.

THE JOB OF A POPE

Pope on Palm Sunday

4. - Thinking of the next Pope, he must be a man that from the contemplation and adoration of Jesus Christ, helps the Church to come out to the existential peripheries, that helps her to be the fruitful mother who lives from the sweet and comforting joy of evangelizing.   

 

After Francis' election, Cardinal Ortega again asked permission to share the text, and Francis again agreed. Cardinal Ortega reported that he is keeping the original as a special treasure of the Church and a privileged memento of the present Supreme Pontiff of the Church.        

BLOGGER'S NOTE

After reading this pre-conclave speech it's hard to accuse the new pope of "blind-siding" the people who elected him.  The cardinals in the conclave knew who they were electing. Let's pray for Pope Francis and for the Church, that we will all be able to put his Christ-like vision into practice.